What’s It About
A rideshare becomes a high-stakes game of cat and mouse when Jaq and Shane receive an Amber Alert on their phones. When they spot the kidnapper’s car with the girl in the back seat, they desperately race against time to save her before it’s too late.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
Two strangers, Jaq and Shane, find themselves because of luck thrust into a series of exciting events. Jaq tries to make it to a blind date and has just missed the rideshare car she first ordered. Desperate, she asks another driver, Shane, to take her. Reluctant, he nevertheless agrees, since her stop is on his way to where he needs to go, and an extra monetary inducement seals the deal. In a sudden turn of events, their ride is disrupted by an Amber alert that has just been issued. A little girl has just been kidnapped, and the only information that’s been sent out was a description of her physical appearance and the car that took her. While driving around, Jaq notices a suspicious-looking vehicle and asks Shane to follow it. In so doing, the two get involved in this search and push themselves further into a race against time and hopefully save an innocent life before it is too late. An 8-year-old girl, Charlotte, disappears from the park while she was playing a game of hide and seek with her brother. The daughter is standing in the background of a video her mom is taking, next to a black car. The mother freaks out and calls the police. Elsewhere across town, Jaq flags off an off-duty rideshare. She’s running late, desperate; Shane is due home for his son’s birthday, but it’s on the way. They both get the Amber Alert on their phone and, within a couple of minutes, they think they spotted the car. They call the police and then proceed with basically following the vehicle wherever it goes. It’s a gripping setup, and Panettiere and Williams can create convincing chemistry from casual chit-chat. Shane does not want anything to do with chasing this Amber Alert car, but Jaq’s passion and urgency eventually wear him down. The police become so overwhelmed with the tips calling in-including those by Jaq and Shane-that they end up supporting the two sleuths, doing their job for them in essence. Even with the inciting kidnapping coming across almost amateur in its execution, director Kerry Bellessa finds ways to build the suspense within this daunting task. The filmmaking tries hard to commendably present how these small moments in the investigation create a cascading effect as normal citizens are forced to dive deeper into this journey. Of course, there are points in which leaps of logic must be taken, especially as the climax heads into predictable action territory that loses the much more restrained pressure. Still, for such modest means, one is captivated by the drama in this concept. What’s less enticing are the mechanics of this story giving texture to its premise and characters. Given just how lean this narrative is, it is almost surprising that the backstory of these characters would take up so much time, and the pace in which this is explored feels awkward and sluggish. This gives the actors moments to get more teary-eyed and, theoretically, more invested in the personal fulfillment they are striving for in this endeavor. Instead, this translates into trite monologues that are pretty unmistakable as their attempts at giving a dimensionality to these characters. Unfortunately, a disproportionately large chunk of this film’s minuscule runtime is dedicated to deeper insight into characters who were not all that interesting in the first place. At the end of the day, these participants in it are rather flat and exist to further only the action. It’s not uncommon for the script to simply fail at producing a really engaging rhythm, instead relying on a series of drab characterizations interspersed with sporadic, though legitimate fun. Of the two anchors-Between Panettiere and Williams-the former puts on far more captivating screen presence. Panettiere cuts a tenacious figure who seems realistic enough in her determination while being a propulsive force of discovery. But despite the awkwardness of her big emotional moment, the performance she gives in that scene’s also a good showcase of her talents. Williams has charm, but also feels a tad wooden in his portrayal-decent scene partner, who never rises above the level of anything other than serviceable. That tone fits in with most of the supporting players, though Kurt Oberhaus does his best to convey a menacing villain, while Kevin Dunn once again plays an exasperated authority figure as the police sergeant. The one true standout is Katie McClellan as the mother of the taken girl, showing a world of pain and trauma from simple facial expressions that are incredibly effective and impactful. There’s an element to “Amber Alert” that has it teetering on the edge of a great chasm, one which would plunge it headfirst into the disposable territory of cheapness. It does not veer in the direction of utter schlock, but there is a small sense one wishes it could have the conviction to include more.
OUR RATING – A HOPEFUL 5